1.2
"Vigilante," the word left hung in the silence as it left Taylor's lips.
Beyond the shattered remains of the surrounding boats, the sounds of an increasingly noisy city began to diminish as the sun once again lowered over the distant horizon, leaving only the moon's light and the shadows its reflected rays could not reach. Shifting into her smoky form and sitting on a throne of freshly melted steel, the newest parahuman of Brockton Bay gazed out from her high position at the city she'd been born in and the city that had taken her mother away long before her time.
"Such a ridiculous term for this day and age, making it seem like those outside the PRT are somehow less. My title is Taylor, daughter, murderer, burned, survivor, and yet all are lost beneath the weight of such a simple word," she turned her head, looking to her claws that could rend flesh despite being not but smoke and shadows, what passed as her eyes glowing briefly as a sword made of dark fire sprung to life at nothing more than a thought.
The blade might have been made by her own power, a symbol of her hate and desire for vengeance, but she could tell that it could become so much more than just a simple extension of her. Thus, without thought or reason, Taylor opened her fang covered mouth and let out a sound that was both a name and a new truth to the world. She watched as the ever shifting flame of her sword grew still, the black smoke it gave off forming a sheath around the now still flame before hardening into obsidian that held a razor's edge.
Despite being so young, she felt older than her physical body demanded and now thought about how best to go about avenging her mother's death. With this new power, a power that placed her on the same footing as many other parahumans across the world, would it be best to simply slaughter the Empire and ABB at every instance? Her hate demanded such a butchery, wanted her to paint all of the bay red with their life blood and let their corpses decay under the blazing sun. Yet didn't this power also come with a certain level of responsibility, a duty to do what she thought was best and protect those that couldn't protect themselves? Her mother would have thought so.
Or perhaps her now having this fire freed her from any such responsibility, burned away the chains that society placed upon everyone under threat of punishment by those that truly had no business butting in on others personal lives. Maybe her only duty, her only responsibility, was to do as she herself wished and damn all others?
An image formed in Taylor's mind, of the last happy moment she experienced before the crash and how excited she'd been that it had been her mom that came to pick her up. Then she pictured the crash, her mom's startled gasp just before the car was flipped and the fire was born. She pictured how it felt when her skin began to blacken, the smell of her mother's corpse that lay motionlessly upside down next to her.
"It doesn't matter now, it won't matter until those two animals are dead and their kingdoms are ash," Taylor clenched her ethereal fists and the heat rose around her until the very throne she sat upon once more began to melt.
Slowly she stood, the metal bubbling and blistering until it began to glow like the sun. Slowly again she raised her blade into the sky and let out a roar of proclamation for all to hear, a roar that proclaimed her dominance, a roar promising fire, and in the blink of an eye she vanished into the night with not a trace to be found.
Like a stalker of old, a shadow on the wall, Taylor flew through the air until she stood in the heart of the ABB territory. It was here that Lung was able to go about his sex trafficing trade with no worry of outside involvement, where he would extort the very people he claimed to protect, and where the fiery blow would burn the most painful. Those normal humans that served under him, that made up the bulk of his forces and spread his influence across almost half the city, would come to fear her more than they feared their master.
1.2
Stolen weapons filled the hands of the ABB gang members sprinting through their nearly deserted territory, word of an attack on one of their whore houses had come to three of the local bosses not an hour ago and thus they rushed to battle with adrenaline pumping through their veins. The attack itself had come out of nowhere, no reports of the Empire mustering their strength or the Protectorate about to perform a raid of their own, but they'd been prepared for something like this to happen ever since Lung thought to secure his territory. As minute after minute passed by more reports came in as to what they were facing, but to the average human it didn't seem to make much sense. A hulking giant of a creature, seemingly made out of shifting smoke and raging fire, had completely torched a four story building with many of the occupants still inside.
Many of the foot soldiers clenched their weapons tighter as they ran, for they had all heard the rumors about what had happened to the Empire gang members just a few nights ago. How the only thing that remained of the once living men had been bodies so consumed by fire that little more than blackened skeletons remained. Many believed this to be the work of a new parahuman, maybe someone that could control intense fire like their own leader, but at the moment it didn't matter.
Reports came in to the highest ranking members that no less than twenty of their brothers and sisters had been butchered by the demon, only known because the first responders found their blackened corpses littered outside the still burning building. Their stomachs knotted and their mouths ran dry until it was hard to swallow. The hairs on the back of their necks and arms stood on end. Ears popped, as the air pressure shifted violently when the inferno's heat finally reached them.
As one solid unit they rounded the final corner before the burning building, only for a primal fear to freeze them in place at what lay before them. Many of them rubbed their eyes as if to dispel the truth of what stood in front of them, oily black smoke snaking through the air in a form so clearly inhuman that every culture in the world had a name for it.
Oni.
Èmó.
Agma.
"DEMON!" one of them roared, none of them knew which one, but as one they unleashed their weapons with a bellow of fire and lead.
It only took a matter of seconds for their weapons to run dry, their lack of trigger discipline was obvious by their last display, and it was only after the last shot was fired did the gravity of their situation finally set in. For the monster of smoke and fire still stood before them, unharmed by their stolen weapons.
Fire rushed across the creature's clawed left hand while the vile looking sword held in its right simmered with potential heat, illuminating the finer and more femenine details of the being. Licks of evil fire exposed twisted horns and a mouth of razor sharp teeth that could rend flesh with ease. The ground shook as it began walking towards them at an almost taunting pace, prompting many of them to reload and start firing again.
Just as before, their bullets didn't even make it break stride.
With speed and strength that was as inhuman as its appearance, the creature stood in their midst like some reaper coming for their sinful souls, and brought its obsidian blade across them all with a single burning swing.
None of them died from the blow, the heat burned their bleeding skin closed the moment it touched them and all they could do was fall to the ground screaming. What many of them imagined would be a glorious fight, a battle that would earn them the praise of Lung for their bravery and skill, was seemingly over in the blink of an eye.
"Tóuxiáng!" one of the more aware men shouted up at the creature, clutching his chest as he fell to his knees.
The demon did not speak his language, none of them were even sure if it could speak, but it did not matter. The man's eyes said it all, translated a single word into a universal meaning just by the way he cowered. A word that the demon hated coming from the mouth of such a lowlife.
Surrender.
As if they were deserving of such a thing. As if they would ever grant such a thing! As if they had ever DONE SUCH A THING!
Instead the creature just gazed down upon the man, gazed over at the other screaming victims, and a thought came to its mind. It would leave a message behind this night, a message to Lung, a message to all those that would beg for mercy.
With burning claws it grabbed the man by his very face, the heat deforming any skin it touched, and dragged him over to a nearby stop sign. The others looking on in horror, the creature relishing their fear, as the man was hoisted into the air before being impaled from his groin and out through his right shoulder. Then another man was grabbed and stacked on top of the previous, who screamed as he was forced to slide down lower.
On and on it went until all of them were impaled on random objects throughout the street; all still very much alive. Thus leaving the creature alone in the center of it all, a pleasant hum of air escaping its mouth at the bloody act it had just committed.
And then, just as no doubt more ABB members were about to round the corner, the creature vanished into a wisp of smoke. The message was sent, but it still had some time to kill.
1.2
Sophia Hess knew what it was like to be hunted, being a black girl in a city full of neo-nazi's insured that she was always aware of her surroundings, but that al changed the day she triggered. Now, thanks to her newborn power, she'd gone from the prey to the hunter and wasted little time in letting the local gangs know this newfound fact. While she'd yet to come up with a proper cape name, as stupid as she thought that was, Sophia wasn't stupid enough not to go out with a mask on her face. It may have been a hockey mask, one bought from a sports store, but people would hardly pay attention to it while having a crossbow pointed at their face. She especially liked the crossbow, because guns were too loud and she had no practical skill with a bow, not to mention she took no small amount of pleasure in brutalizing her prey with the lethal hunting bolts.
She was a stalker now, her power giving her the ability to reach her targets no matter where they went, and the last few nights her victims of choice had been the abundant members of the ABB. While not her usual targets, the Empire earned her wrath more than a bunch of Asians, their screams of pain still sent a shiver of pleasure straight to her brain. Sophia practically salivated when she remembered the pure agony she'd caused one of her prey when she phased a bolt right into his kneecap and made it shatter in a spray of blood. The man would be lucky if he could ever walk normally again.
But there was something different about tonight, a heavy pressure in the air that put Sophia's teeth on edge and made her hold her crossbow tight enough to nearly crack the grip. It made her remember back to the accident, when those Nazi fucks blindsided her step-father's car and ran them off the road in a half assed assassination attempt. It made her taste the blood in her mouth from when she nearly bit off her own tongue, feeling the choking sensation from the first time her breaker powers came forth and saved her.
A scream tore through the air and Sophia moved!
With a speed born of natural talent and quite a bit of training, Sophia ran across the rooftop with the grace of a true hunter. Her breaker state, always activated just before she was about to jump a rather large distance between two buildings, made her just light enough to clear it and keep moving. Things like fences or rooftop units did nothing to slow her down, once more her power turning her into something untouchable, while the continued screams of someone being attacked was like a homing signal to her.
Sophia came skidding to a halt just before the next ledge, falling to her knees so as to better hide herself, and leaned just enough over the edge to peak at what transpired below.
"What the fuck?" the words slipped from her lips in a breathless whisper, for what happened below was like something out of a horror movie.
While her own brutal nature made her enjoy inflicting pain on those she hunted, often crippling them in one way or another, what was happening below was like something from the depths of hell itself. A creature, both made of smoke and yet solid all the same, towered over a whimpering and begging man that looked as if he'd been dragged through a fire pit while covered in gas. Burns and melted clothes covered him to the point that he looked barely human, more like some deformed monstrosity that could only suffer for the remainder of its miserable life.
In one simple motion the monster below picked up its victim by their throat and held them in the air with apparent ease, only for the already burned man to somehow catch fire again and slowly turn to dust before Sophia's very eyes.
"yOu," Sophia could only blink before something burning hot grabbed her by the back of the neck and sent her sailing across the barren rooftop, only stopping when her back hit the other low standing barrier that marked the edge.
She blinked again and the same creature she had just been watching now stood towering over her, a blade of frozen smoke and fire close enough to her throat that just swallowing made the point tickle her skin. Fear, for the first time since her powers came forth, crept into Sophia's heart when she got a really good look at what this thing looked like.
If Scion was what many believe God to look like, being a golden man of ethereal beauty, then this thing was obviously his opposite. It had a female form, was almost like living smoke, had two sets of rather dangerous looking horns, and one could almost taste the hate that radiated off of it like a living flame gives off heat. Only through sheer survival instinct did Sophia activate her powers, turning into a smoke-like figure to try and escape, but that's when something more terrifying happened.
A clawed hand lashed out and seized Sophia by her throat despite being in her breaker state; something that had never happened to her before. She felt like screaming as heat coursed through her entire body, a heat that made every nerve glow until the pain had become too much to handle and only sweet oblivion awaited her.
She should have just stayed home.
1.2
Taylor felt a sense of familiarity as her fiery gaze trailed over the masked individual that had been spying on her, who now lay slumped on the ground at her feet after being unceremoniously dropped. She'd never seen this person before, although the mask and odd ability to turn into smoke painted her as a fellow parahuman, but that was no reason for such a bond to exist. Then a memory came, a memory of fire and twisted metal, and with that memory also came a figure that pulled her from the flames. This person had been made of smoke, had phased through fire and metal, and now it all made sense.
Slowly Taylor allowed her body to shift back to its normal lanky self, the bandages surrounding her burns slipping back into place with familiar ease, and made her obsidian sword vanish into a puff of smoke and sparks. She wore just a simple hooded jacket, a pair of gray sweatpants, and a set of plain looking slip-on shoes. Her burns itched under the white bandages, the skin on her face still feels tight where they had licked her flesh, but the cool night air is soothing in its own way.
"You're the one that pulled me from the car," Taylor whispered to herself, kneeling down next to her fellow parahuman and lifting up her mask without a moment's thought or hesitation, "You saved my life before the fire could take me just as the crash took my mother."
There was no response, Taylor couldn't really expect there to be one, but she did commit the black girl's face to memory. She would remember her long and straight black hair, the specific pigmentation of her skin, the way her cheekbones rose up to make her look attractive in the conventional sense, and her full lips that made Taylor burn in a way she was yet unfamiliar with.
Taylor knew she couldn't leave the girl here on this rooftop, not so close to the site of her most recent case of slaughter, for if she was found then the ABB would no doubt believe her to be the one that did it. So, her mind made up, she transformed once more and picked up her once savior.
"PlAnS FoR yoU."
The night ended.
Those that survived cried at the sight of the rising sun.
For it meant they were now safe from the monster than haunted the night.
AN: Please note that this Taylor will not be nice to practically anyone that stands against her. She's very much about killing them all and letting god sort it out.